Russia Payment Saga Continues

According to Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, the nation will reduce the size of deposit payments required for Mastercard and Visa to operate in Russia. The announcement comes nearly one month after Russia President Vladimir Putin signed into law that foreign service providers had to make a necessary security deposit in order to keep operating in the country.

Visa said in a released statement that the guarantee deposit is unworkable and goes beyond what it is willing to do.

“Visa is actively engaged with the Russian government to find a mutually satisfactory modification to the national payment system law,” the company said, as reported by Emerging Markets.

However, Russia is not just standing by while the issues with Visa and MasterCard are being straightened out.

According to a recent RT story, Russia developed its own microchip for the national payment card. Developed by Payment Technologies, the innovation is expected to provide better payment security. However, the nation is not about to start mass-developing cards with the new microchip because it has only passed laboratory testing.

“At least 1.5 years will be needed to reach a full scale production until all needed infrastructure is established,” an expert reported to Kommersant.

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